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Instructions Discuss how Karl Marx and Frederic Engels describe the capitalist system in The Communist Manifesto

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Instructions

Discuss how Karl Marx and Frederic Engels describe the capitalist system in The Communist Manifesto. In your answer, discuss: 1) what existed before capitalism, 2) the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, 3) the role of ideology in capitalist societies, 4) the relationship the bourgeoisie has with the state, 5) and the eventual fate of capitalism (hint: How do Marx and Engels understand what will happen to capitalism? How does that happen?). Also, looking at American society today, assess Marx and Engel's claims about 1) the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, 2) the role of ideology, 3) the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the state, and 4) their predictions about the fate capitalism.

Things to consider:

1. You should be able to get full credit with an essay that is about 600 words long. However, since there is no penalty for long essays, and if your essay is shorter you run the risk of not providing enough detail, I would recommend that you write as much as you want, making sure you put in all the detail you think will sufficiently answer this question. Students are often penalized for not providing enough detail.

2. Make sure you fully cover all the points in the question prompt. Students are often penalized for not fully covering all points.

3. In your discussion, make sure you look at American society today, assessing Marx and Engel's claims about 1) the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, 2) the role of ideology, 3) the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the state, and 4) their predictions about the fate capitalism. Students are often penalized for not assessing in some detail Marx and Engel's claims about capitalism and it's applicability today.

4. Make sure to double space.

5. Make sure you write at a college level, for example, write in complete sentences. Make sure you proofread your essay. Students are sometimes penalized because the essay has too many writing mistakes.

 

The Communist Manifesto

Marx and Engels believed that history is best understood if you focus on the class struggles that existed in all past societies. They write, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” As they see it, in all previous societies, groups stood in constant opposition to one another. The modern epoch is not any different except in one way. In earlier epochs, there were many gradations of rank. For example, in Ancient Rome, there were patricians, knights, plebians, and slaves. Or for example, in the Middle Ages, there were feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, and serfs. What is distinctive about this epoch, according to Marx and Engels, is that class antagonisms have simplified; now there are only two important ones. In the modern epoch, society is being split up into two “great hostile camps”: the bourgeoisie and proletariat. By bourgeoisie, they are referring to the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production (i.e., owners of the factories) and employers of wage-labor (i.e., people that work in the factories). By proletariat, they are referring to the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live.

Marx and Engels’ discuss various characteristics of modern capitalism, particularly focusing on the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. One characteristic of modern capitalism is that the proletariat are treated like commodities, like an article of commerce, something that is bought and sold, “exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition.” Marx and Engels write, “Their lives are dependent on their ability to find work. They find work only as long as their labor increases capital for the bourgeoisie.” And since the proletariat are only seen as a cost of production, they are paid just enough to survive, just enough for “his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race.” As an exercise, think about the relationship that you have with the owners of the company that you work for. Do you make them lots of money? Do you profit from your labor or does someone else keep most of the profits that you worked hard to make for them? Post your comments to our discussion board.

A second characteristic of capitalism is that the worker becomes alienated from his work. Marx, in other places, wrote about how the proletariat becomes alienated from the bourgeoisie, from others (even his family members), from himself, from nature, and from his work. In these notes, I will only discuss the alienation that the worker feels toward his work. Marx and Engels tend to romanticize the work that craftsmen did in the past. For them, the work that craftsmen did was much more satisfying. The blacksmith, for example, in the process of making a plow, was in full control of the whole production process. Also, he used the tools that he owned to make the plow. Further, it was the blacksmith that had control over his tools. But the worker in a factory, has no control over the production process. The tools (machines) that are used are not owned by him. Also, rather than the craftsman having full control over his tools, the worker in a factory is now fully controlled by the tools of production. The worker is now enslaved to the machine. He is but an appendage to the machine. Marx and Engels write, “Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine.” Also, the craftsman felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment because he felt like he created something. From start to finish, he was involved in the whole process. But for workers on the assembly line, they perform simple and monotonous tasks. They have little sense of what they are making. It requires no talent, no skill, and no creativity. Marx and Engels write, “The work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman.” How many of you feel alienated at work? Post your comments to our discussion board.

A third characteristic of modern capitalism is that it is constantly expanding to other areas of the world. The bourgeoisie seem to be unable to control themselves in their pursuit of profit. In their pursuit of profit, they expand into the yet unconquered areas of the globe in search of markets, cheap labor, and resources. Marx and Engels write that the bourgeoisie use “cheap prices as its heavy artillery to batter down all Chinese walls.” Their prediction that capitalism would invade every corner of the globe seems to have come true in the late twentieth century. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there really is no alternative to capitalism. Even communist China is thoroughly a part of the capitalist world system. There is virtually no place on earth that has not become part of the global capitalism system.

In the article, "The Foundations of Third World Poverty," John Isbister describes the various strategies that the colonizing powers used as they expanded their influence over various parts of the globe. Rather than fair free-market rules determining the relationship between the colonizing powers and the colonized, their relationship can be better characterized as violent and exploitative. Isbister writes that to this day, those exploitative relationships established during the colonial period still shape the relationships that exist between the former colonizers and colonized.

A fourth characteristic of modern capitalism is the use of capitalist ideology by the bourgeoisie to maintain their privilege. Your textbook defines ideology as shared ideas or beliefs that serve to justify the interests of dominant groups. Marx believed that the bourgeoisie not only control the material culture of society, but also the nonmaterial culture—the ideas, thoughts, and attitudes that exist in society. The bourgeoisie depend on ideology to hold on to their power. Marx writes in another place,

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force . . . The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships.

Think about some ruling ideas that we as Americans believe to be true. One belief that might fit the definition of ideology is the belief that the United States is a meritocracy. You can be anything that you want to be. If you are smart enough and work hard enough you can be very successful. The funny thing is, not only do the rich believe this (this makes sense since it helps them to justify their advantaged position), but so do the poor and working class (this doesn’t make much sense since this belief serves to work against their interests). For example, Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, in their book The Hidden Injuries of Class, describe how a garbage collector, a man nearly illiterate, placed the blame for his lowly position entirely on himself: “Look, I know it's nobody's fault but mine that I got stuck here where I am, I mean . . . if I wasn't such a dumb---- . . . no, it ain't that neither . . . if I'd applied myself, I know I got it in me to be different, can't say anyone did it to me” (Sennett and Cobb 1972: 96). As an exercise, think about other ideas or beliefs that are widely held in the United States that serve to justify the advantages that the rich have. Post your thoughts on the discussion board.

A fifth characteristic of modern capitalism is that the capitalist class uses the political system for its own benefit. In Marx's analysis of the capitalist system, he assumes that the base (that is, the economic base) determines what the rest of society looks like. For example, in capitalist societies, all other parts of society, the superstructure, will be shaped by capitalism. So the family, schools, religion, sports, entertainment, political system, and so on, are determined by capitalism. The political system, then, is a system the is determined by the capitalist class. Marx and Engels wrote that the bourgeoisie has “conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” This point is reflected in the former presidential candidate Ralph Nader's comment that government is “of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation.” For Marx, then, we do not live in a democracy. That we do is largely an illusion, or part of the capitalist ideology. Our elected officials are not sensitive to the needs of the constituents; rather, they do the work of protecting the interests of the capitalist class. What do you think about this claim? Do you believe that we live in a democracy? Or do you believe that our elected officials represent the interests of the rich? Post your thoughts on our discussion board. Also, think about the ways in which other parts of society are shaped by the interests of the capitalist class. Post your thoughts to our discussion board.

Let’s end our discussion of the Communist Manifesto by examining what Marx and Engels believed was the future of capitalism. Not only did they believe communism to be a better alternative, but that it was inevitable. The working class, in the last stages of capitalism, would begin to understand the true condition that they are in. That is, they would develop a class consciousness. They would understand what was going on--that they were doing all the work and the bourgeoisie was keeping all the profits that was generated by their work. They would then will rise up and overthrow the existing capitalist structure and put into place a society where there is greater equality. This is the way that Marx and Engels put it:

The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.

And as distinctions between the proletariat disappear, the workers begin to form trade unions against the bourgeois. These trade unions will win small victories, but Marx and Engels believed that these victories would only be temporary. The most important aspect of these trade unions is that they were constantly expanding and getting stronger. Marx and Engels write:

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier.

Eventually this union of workers would overthrow the capitalist class and establish a more fair communist society. This is what Marx predicted. Certainly there have been communist revolutions around the world, but we have yet seen a revolution of workers on a scale to end the domination of capitalism in the world. Will there ever be a global revolution against capitalism? Some have predicted that capitalism is near the end of its 400 year run. We will come back to this, later on this semester, when we discuss Immanuel Wallerstein’s assessment of democracy. As an exercise, think about why Marx and Engel’s prediction has not yet come true. Do you think it will ever come true?